May 6th, 2008, 03:10 PM
USENET NEWS
The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. Every day on Usenet the "blind men and the elephant" phenomenon appears, in spades. In the opinion of the author, more flame wars (rabid arguments) arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly understood Usenet must be from the outside!
No essay on the nature of Usenet can ignore the erroneous impressions held by many Usenet users. Therefore, this section will treat falsehoods first. Keep reading for the truth. (Beauty, alas, is not relevant to Usenet.)
Usenet is not an organization
Usenet has no central authority. In fact, it has no central anything. The vague notion of "upstream" and "downstream" is related to high-volume news flow.
Usenet is not a democracy
Some people wish that Usenet were a democracy. Many people pretend that it is. Both groups are sadly deluded.
Usenet is not fair
After all, who shall decide what's fair? For that matter, if someone is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him? Neither you nor I, that's for certain.
Group Creation
As discussed above, Usenet is not a democracy. Nevertheless, currently the most popular way to create a newsgroup is to have a "vote" to determine popular support for or against a proposed newsgroup.
If you follow the guidelines, it is probable that your group will be widely propagated. However, due to the nature of Usenet, there is no way for any user to enforce the results of a newsgroup vote (or any other decision, for that matter). Therefore, for your new newsgroup to be propagated widely, you must not only follow the letter of the guidelines; you must also follow its spirit. And you must not allow even a whiff of shady dealings or dirty tricks to mar the vote.
So you may ask: How is a new user supposed to know anything about the "spirit" of the guidelines? Obviously, he can't. This fact inexorably leads to the following recommendation:
If you're a new user, don't ever try to create a new newsgroup alone.
Readers may think this advice is unnecessarily strict. Ignore it at your own peril. It is embarrassing to speak before learning. It is foolish to jump into a society you don't understand with your mouth open. And it is futile to try to force your will on people who can tune you out with a press of a key.
Bogus Newsgroups
Occasionally, people will take advantage of the Usenet newsgroup mechanism and create "fake" newsgroups. They have included name like alt.swedish-chef.bork.bork.bork and such. These cause no small amount of grief for news administrators. If you do figure out how to fake a control message to create a group, just pride yourself in your ingenuity- you and everyone else will be much happier.
If You're Unhappy
Property rights being what they are, there is no higher authority on Usenet than the people who own the machines on which the traffic is carried. If the owner of your machine says, "We will not carry alt.sex on this machine," and you are not happy with that order, you have no Usenet recourse.
That doesn't mean you are without options. Depending on the nature of your site, you may have some internal political recourse. Or you might find external pressure helpful.
No matter what, appealing to The Net won't help. Even if those who read such an appeal regarding system administration are sympathetic to your cause, they will almost certainly have less influence on your site than you do.
Usenet "Netiquette"
There are many traditions within Usenet, not the least of which is dubbed Netiquette- always being polite and considerate of others. If you follow a few basic guidelines, you, and everyone who reads your posts, will be much happier in the long run.
Signatures
At the end of most articles is a small blurb called a person's signature, or just "sig". It exists to provide contact information. Even so, signatures have become the graffiti of computers. People put songs lyrics, pictures, philosophical quotes, and even advertisements in their ".sigs". (Note, however, that advertising in your signature will more often than not get you flamed until you take it out.)
Four lines will suffice- more is just extra garbage for Usenet sites to carry along with your article, which is supposed to be the intended focus of the reader. Netiquette dictates limiting oneself to this "quota" of of four- some people make signatures that are ten lines or even more, including elaborate ASCII drawings of their hand drawn signature, or faces, or even the space shuttle. This is not cute, and will anger people to no end.
The newsgroup alt.fan.warlord is a dumping ground for the most heinous signature violations. In the course of reading news, people occasionally do followups into alt.fan.warlord to show off their latest discoveries- talking whales, ten-line-high cacti, and a variety of other ASCII miracles.
Quality of Postings
How you write and present yourself in your postings is important. If you have terrible spelling, keep a dictionary nearby. If you have trouble with grammar and punctuation, try to get a book on English grammar and composition (found in many book stores and garage sales). By all means pay attention to what you say- it makes who you are on the net.
Likewise, try to be clear in what you ask. Give as much essential information as you feel is necessary to let people help you, but keep it within limits. For instance, you should probably include what operating system you use in the post if it's needed, but you certainly don't need to describe the peripherals hanging off of it.
A Final Note
Before going on, one thing must be pointed out. Usenet is a vast and complex thing. There are many things to learn about it. It is not, however, the major use of networks: by far, it's only a drop in the bucket compared to the whole of what can be done with the medium. Many fascinating things are being created around the world that are deserving of your attention- don't bury yourself in news.
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